8 PREFACE TO PARENTS. 



a hope. If to entertain reverence for our Maker, 

 to admire and adore his wisdom and goodness in 

 the illustrations of nature, thankfully to acknow- 

 ledge and duly to improve the superiority which 

 mind confers, be exercises in which a wise parent 

 would desire to train a child, the study of natu- 

 ral science is admirably adapted to the attainment 

 of these objects. Again, if it be desirable to en- 

 courage habits of patient observation, accuracy of 

 investigation, and soundness of thought ; let the vol- 

 ume of nature be opened before the youthful mind. 

 If to learn things be better than to learn words, it 



O 



is important to place things before the growing 

 intellects of the young. Let it not be supposed that 

 to present matters of science intelligibly to the minds 

 of children is a hopeless task. It requires not 

 learning or maturity of understanding to perceive 

 a fact ; it needs only the ordinary senses which God 

 has bestowed alike upon children and their parents. 

 Natural science is emphatically the science of 

 facts ; built upon any other foundation it becomes 

 conjecture merely : and he knows but little of the 

 mind of a child who is not aware of the facility with 

 which a fact is impressed upon it. The secret of 

 instructing the young will be found to consist more 

 in the mode of communication than in the nature 

 of the subject. 



